The most interesting politician in America is nearly 7 feet tall and campaigns in dive bars

John Fetterman doesn't need to explain to anyone why he's not a typical candidate.

The nearly 7-foot tall, tattooed, bald man with a bristly beard doesn't only stand out among a crowd of suit-and-tie politicians — he just stands out, period.

But the Harvard-educated mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania, has similar aspirations to many in that suit-and-tie crowd. He wants to win a Senate seat in 2016.

And it could happen.

"As anyone knows, looks can be deceiving," he told INSIDER.

Fetterman, a Democrat, has been mayor of Braddock — a former steel-making town of 2,000 near Pittsburgh — since 2005. He's taking on former Congressman Joe Sestak and Katie McGinty, the former chief of staff to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf. Although he only announced his campaign in September, Fetterman's already favored by 14% in recent polls. Plus, he trails by just 7% in a recent head-to-head poll against incumbent Sen. Pat Toomey (R) conducted by Public Policy Polling.

He's at a fundraising disadvantage at the moment. It's the biggest obstacle to his campaign. His competitors have raised millions of dollars, while the September Federal Election Commission report showed he has brought in about $170,000 in donations. Granted, that was within two weeks.

"This is a television state; it's a big media state. He needs a minimum of $5 million and probably closer to $10 (million)," Terry Madonna, director for Franklin & Marshall College's Center for Politics and Public Affairs, told The Hill.

Facebook/John Fetterman

He's trying to make up that deficit by campaigning at some of his favorite places — dive bars. He said he wants to meet voters where they actually want to hang out rather than hold elitist political "rubber chicken" dinners, as he calls them.

"I go to fun places where people actually want to have a beer and have fun and would be there otherwise," he said. "These are the places that resonate with me and these are the places that have regular people that don't go to these chicken dinners with asparagus tips in hotel ballrooms."

It's resonated with his fellow Pennsylvanians.

"Like, people have said, 'I can't remember the last time I went to a political event and it was fun,'" Fetterman said.

He knows that mindset makes him look like an outsider in an election season that has propped up so-called outsiders like Donald Trump and Ben Carson. He's far from one — even if he looks the part, he said.

Immigration, gun control, and ending the war on drugs are three of the top issues he's campaigning on. He doesn't hold a surprising stance on any of the three for a Democrat, but his perspective on each is different.

Fetterman's wife is from Brazil, and spent years as an undocumented immigrant. He supports comprehensive reform because, as he told The Nation, "I wouldn't have a family if it wasn't for immigration."

A gun owner himself, he thinks the discussion of gun control goes hand in hand with ending the war on drugs.

"I've been mayor of a town now for 10 years and I can definitively say the war on drugs doesn't work. I come to this opinion not by watching 'The Wire' but actually seeing how it plays out in day-to-day existence," he told The Hill. "The gun control conversation is incomplete if you don't talk about decriminalizing some of these drugs that lead to many more shooting deaths."

Fetterman mentioned someone was just recently shot in Braddock over carrying an expensive bag of marijuana. As he puts it, "no one gets shot over a 12 pack of beer."

Legalizing weed would prevent that kind of violence, and the recent decisions in states like Colorado and Washington didn't turn them "into Pineapple Express."

Facebook/John Fetterman

On his right arm, Fetterman has nine dates tattooed — all corresponding with murders that happened in Braddock under his watch. Seven of those nine were the result of gun violence. The first killing inspired him to start tattooing the dates to his arm.

"I was mayor for give or take 10 days," he said. "Less than two weeks for sure. And it was a pizza deliveryman. He was my age and he was married. He had a 2- or 3-year-old daughter. It was just such an awful and jarring experience to see the horror of a life thrown away for absolutely nothing."

He's still haunted today by that man's death.

"The thought that this man went out and just did his job and was delivering pizza and someone took his life over nothing," he said. "And he'll never get to see his wife again and he died alone on a cold dark street. His child is now a teenager and she never knew her father all because of a decision that these people made to take his life and I can't ever, you know, I mean that just changed me at such a fundamental level."

The story is one of many that give a sense of Fetterman's moral compass, which is what led him into one of the most hotly contested Senate races in America. He looks, sounds, and feels like a different candidate. And he just might win.